


Grophet's Gambit - Morning Meditation

by DancingHare



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 09:04:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14493531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingHare/pseuds/DancingHare
Summary: Kazta seeks to ease her mind.





	Grophet's Gambit - Morning Meditation

This early, only the larger of Tatooine’s suns had yet risen. Its strange red light lent the dunes and long shadows an eerie air, as if the world itself was bathed in blood. Kazta tried, without much success, to clear her mind as the jedi had showed her to do. It had been some time since she’d come up here, and maybe she’d forgotten how. Or more likely, she was never really very good at in the first place. The sounds of the lonely desert morning kept bringing her back to the moment; the steady whoosh of wind over the sand, the far-off call of an animal, the whisper of leather bootsteps on sand. Kazta opened her eyes to see the cathar, the one she’d until recently been sheltering, looking on in surprise.

“I-I’m sorry to disturb you, Major. I didn’t know anyone would be up here.”

“Wait.” He paused mid-step as he was turning to leave. “I don’t mind. I might need a refresher on how to do this,” Kazta admitted.

He settled down eagerly not far away, his legs folded in that impossible way. “Good, first of all — oh.” The young jedi blinked, staring at her intently. “You’re all–” he gestured vaguely around Kazta. “Jumbled.”

Kazta scowled, pulling her cloak more tightly around her shoulders. “Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“That thing where you look inside my head,” she grumbled. “It’s rude.”

Xarlo shook his head. “I didn’t! It’s all over. You can’t tell?”

Jumbled. Kazta frowned. That was a good word for it, she had to admit.

“D’you… want to talk?” he asked warily.

Kazta grunted. “Not really.”

But jedi were supposed to be impartial, weren’t they? And she knew his past — what little of it there was — she’d read the records. He had no hidden entanglements or dark secrets, in fact she’d not even seen him talk to anyone other than the other padawan who’d arrived with him. Maybe it would help to talk to someone.

“People are confusing,” said Kazta finally.

“Well, that’s for sure.”

Where to begin? First there were a lot of new faces around, ones that she’d assumed were more contacts of Shani’s. Now that she’d admitted to working with the SIS, a lot of things made more sense — such as all those contacts of hers. It probably also explained how she’d learned Imperial close combat technique. But a lot of them seemed to be exactly the sort of people Kazta had wanted to avoid — brash, reckless, ruthless, and disrespectful. They were unreliable and a liability, though she had to admit they’d gotten the data from the Geonosians without any blasters being fired. It had been pretty tense for a while there, though, and Kazta worried they’d now have to anticipate a counter-attack from the compound. After all, they had broken in and stolen data, against Kazta’s suggestion, and had to leave in a rather undiplomatic hurry once they’d been discovered. At best, they’d not trust the crew again, which was also discouraging. They needed allies badly at this point.

Em had somehow found the time to bring a new man around, and Kazta wondered just where one went to find one like that. He was a zabrak, which was surprising of itself, but it also gave her a little jab of homesickness. It had been so long since she’d thought about them: Xerok, Kovo, Maxa, Reso. Sometimes she thought about what they might be doing now, trying to contact them. Would they even remember her? Xerok surely would, they’d been close friends then, but it seemed like ages ago now. This one said he wasn’t raised with zabrak, which was plainly obvious — he seemed more like a human in his ways. And Kazta had thought she had reunited with the captain, but it really wasn’t any of her business. She had more important things to think about — but that didn’t mean she didn’t notice things. Things like how strange Shani and the captain were acting together.

The cathar was watching her expectantly for her to say something else.

“They say one thing, then they do something completely different. Then they’re surprised that you don’t believe them anymore.”

“That’s it?” Xarlo asked.

Was it? That was the essence of it. She couldn’t understand why Shani and others kept asking for her opinion when they didn’t actually want to hear it. Or when the zabrak said that Em had spoken highly of her — that was puzzling. She didn’t think Em liked her very much at all, certainly after Kazta had expressed doubts about her past. The captain had also asked what she thought — after the mission was already underway, when it didn’t matter. It was unusual to say the least.

Most of all, she missed knowing what to expect — the routine, the protocol, the time when “Major” actually meant something other than part of her name. In some cases, it replaced her name here. They weren’t bad people — most of them, anyway — but they were far from what she was used to. And while they’d made progress, they’d had to claw their way there. Last night, the captain had asked what she would do after their mission was over, which she found odd. She’d be given another assignment, why would she do anything else? She hoped it would be boring and ordinary after this one.

“More or less.”

The cathar sighed. “I know that’s not everything, I can see it, you know.”

“What?” Kazta blinked.

“That’s a joke. I can’t.”

Still, she glared at him.

“Come on, don’t you feel a little better?” he asked.

She didn’t feel any less confused, but Kazta supposed she felt a little better, even if she hadn’t actually told him most of it. “I guess,” she shrugged.

He smiled brightly. “Good! Now, let’s try again. Sit like this…”


End file.
